Here's a local band you should give a listen to:

The Great Spy Experiment.

Class A Love Affair
very, very listenable - hard to dislike!

Siti in the City
can see the Franz Ferdinand influence, still really good!



Hurrah, three more papers to go.
See you around kiddos!

Oh my giddy god trousers, this is what the A Levels do to you. Only finding out two days later that

BRITNEY SPEARS HAS BEEN SAVED*.

God bless your Cheetos Brit-Brit, and may this be a sign that I shall glide through the exams as well as your svelte new shape and spiffy haircut.

Bring on the singing fangirls!!

*Via divorce with K-Fed.



What would I do without celebrity gossip!
Die of ennui, probably.

Haha, have always wanted to use that fancy-schmancy word!
I am happy, also beyond words.

all is well.
all is well!
i sing, heart in throat;
and all is well in this
lovely, lovely,
silence

Pictures taken during Hari Raya! I quite enjoyed it this year actually, maybe because I talked more with the adults instead of skulking around. Although! Watching my younger cousins play is lovely too.


Shot of the parents! My dad is smiling, which is a big deal cos he usually doesn't in photos.


At my aunt's - one of the manymanyMANY attempts of trying to figure out people's timer functions. Obviously this picture failed, but it was very funny! I am under my uncle's elbow, laughing and trying not to fall off the sofa's arm.


A more moody shot, I suppose? I don't know, I kinda like it although at the same time, it seems a tad unfocused.


Variation of the above! Upgrade/downgrade/no grade? HAHA oh god I need to shut up.


My grandmother! I'm always surprised each time I'm told her age, I've always thought she's much younger - spunky woman. I REALLY WISH THIS PHOTO WAS SHARPER =(


Boy cousin!


Girl cousins!











Finis!

Evidently, my tagboard has gone WHACK.

So, what do you guys use? Message my phone people!

PHWOAR so yesterday, I had an almost-monumental emotional freakout. It seems these episodes are quite periodic and happen about...every two months or so. Is that healthy? I suppose not, but in a very strange and quite masochistic way, it of course feels very good.

I BLAME THE RIGOURS OF ADOLESCENCE.

Haha well I am half-kidding anyway. It seems that after such breakdowns, I take very little seriously and everything's a joke as if I've just run out of emotional juice! It is quite funny, observing one's own emotional cycles. Not so funny when you see how ridiculous it all is but well, no matter!

Wednesday was the submission of our Art A Level Coursework, and no I don't really want to talk about it because I'm not veryvery happy with it and oh woe, artistic anguish!

Although I will send pictures to you Aini, if you ask!

And at some point of time, when photobucket is being kind, will post up pictures too.

But hey! Let's talk about my sooper-dooper fun art class! It's a pity we only got to know each other better these recent weeks, but heck isn't that how things always are?
They're marvelous people and what's so great is that we're like a collective of random people thrown in from different cliques and backgrounds, so things are always always interesting.


So here's Zara and I (woah, proper grammer) at the examination center at Margaret Drive where we submitted our projects. We took a bus there, while Kenneth was carted into a truck with his larger project. We are jumping with MUCH JOY because it is all over!

Joy also, because the trucks delivering the works of other schools (and hence, anxiety over our own competency) have not yet arrived.

You know funny thing is that while we look so happy here, the class was collectively having seperation anxiety after we submitted our works. Typical symptoms exhibited include: reluctance to leave the submission room, half-hearted attempts to sneak back into room and MASSIVE PARANOIA.

EXHIBIT A

While giving a last check on our coursework 5 minutes before it goes into the hands of Cambridge

Zara: (pointing to the name label on a prep board) Iz, that's my name right?

(Izyanti reads: Kok Dengyun Zara)

Me: Yes Zara, that is your name. NOW GET YOUR O.C.D BUTT TO THERAPY NOWWWWWW!

Okay fine, I didn't quite say the last bit but I did give her the Look! Right Zara, that look?

So while waiting for Kenneth's truck to arrive, the rest of us decide to explore the wilderness that is Margaret Drive.



We frolicked on fields, poked about mimosa patches and hopefully looked for four-leafed clovers for A Levels luck!



Here's a picture of our art room that we have grown really fond of. In a good mood, we call it cosy and um, a rustic terrace if one were to consider the open space downstairs where the easel-painters work to be an extension of the art room.

But when the electricity goes bafflingly bonkers, it is just stuffy and REALLY sucks.

As you can see, the two walls in view in the photograph are exact width of the room. The windows seen make one end of it, and where the picture was taken is the door. THIS MEANS IT IS VERY SMALL.

And here we have with us our art teacher, Mrs Haworth! Who, as much as she frustrates us, probably saved us. We like her a lot secretly, although sometimes we have little jokes about her British mannerisms but HECK, that happens to all teachers! It's an occupational hazard.



Okay. So now that's done, I'm off to grapple with the next art assignment due next thursday HURRAH!!!

Death! Death! Death!










PATD is good for massive anxiety assaults. Pushing off the cliff!

So have been hearing that some people in the fashion industry do not agree with Milan's move to actually ban 'sick-looking models' who have a BMI under 18. Granted, some reasons given are quite valid:

- BMI inaccurate:
Very true actually, if you do research surveying a wide range people with different body types, you kinda find that some perfectly healthy, athletic people have soaring BMIs that would otherwise categorize them as obese.

Come on, I was looking through a livejournal community's response to said issue, and had enough varied answers.

- Legislation not the only answer:
True, gotta throw in the whole educating-the-youths package.

BUT!

BUT!

When Elite accuses this recent development for using the fashion industry as a scapegoat for spikes in eating disorders, well!

Who in the world are they trying to kid?

Right, people didn't starve themselves a decade back to look heroin chic. Of course. Not for fashion. They just...weren't hungry.

When they say that the industry is being used as a scapegoat, they're saying that they don't have that much of an influence in the real world after all, and god knows that ain't true. People at the top of the industry themselves know very well how influential fashion is, and what that spokesman said is probably the hugest, embarrassingly blatant,whopping lie I've ever heard in the media.

People watch celebrities and who we define as beautiful and naturally, if stupidly, we try want to have some semblance of that beauty. If you say that well, high fashion doesn't have that much of an impact on the common Lime-reading teenager, okay. But you can't deny that the celebrites that said teenager does know about, and probably adores do follow trends set by high fashion.

I think more concrete evidence about how influential fashion is anyway, is to consider the changing trends in beauty. Not in decades, I'm talking CENTURIES. During the Renaissance, fat ladies were in. Reubans through his paintings made sure that even now, we know that at some point of human history, fat people were hot.

Aiya - Singlish for emphasis! - and what's really wrong with not having sick-looking skeletal models on the runway? I think the difference between Jack Skeleton and the toned Gisele or even waif-like Gemma Ward is quite, quite apparent.

I suppose there's only a problem because it means somebody has to determine what's healthy, and what's not. But ooh, big moral dilemma! The fashion industry has only been like, deciding what's beautiful and what's not, at the loss of a massive amount of consumer welfare!! (Sorry, economics exam tomorrow.) Point is:

"In fashion, one day you're in and the next day you're out."

Sounds familiar, eh? But I still love you Heidi.

So c'mon fashion people - at least have the dignity and shame to play by your own rules! Can't keep the fat people (I use this term here REALLY loosely) off the runway just because you say so, and then cry foul when we want to keep the super-skinny people off too.

Maybe when you have size 10 people beside the size 0, I'll shut my trap.

In any case, this whole brou-ha-ha is as funny as the word brou-ha-ha itself because it accidentally and finally revealed the industry (and our) hypocrisy to the WHOLE WIDE WORLD so come, gather round and let's hear it: hahahahahaha!



(I think some equally generously proportioned comedian said that if she was in Reuban's time, she'd be the Pretty Young Thing and Kate Moss would be his paintbrush. What, it's funny!)

Because this is disgusting, and you need to read about it.



"The two teens are those spokeskids for white separatists, [14 year old] Lamb and
Lynx Gaede, who vaulted to international attention after they appeared on ABC's
"Primetime" last year.

Lamb and Lynx created the band Prussian Blue to communicate their white
separatist views musically. The song "Sacrifice" praises Nazi leader Rudolph
Hess, Adolph Hitler's deputy.

In the "Primetime" interview, Lynx who was 13 at the time, says she and her
sister were "proud of being white."

"We want our people to stay white," she says. "We don't want to just be, you
know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race."


YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.

I've heard of white supremacists, but this just makes me sick. So, in the same interview mentioned above, the interviewer asks, "What are your views on Hitler?"

"We think...Hitler was just trying to preserve his race."

"...But he killed 6 millon jews."

And then the other one, amazingly says, "We think that's an exaggeration...we hardly believe there were even that many Jews alive back then."

Yes, because people like you killed them!

I think what grosses me out more than the things that they say, is that they say it so easily. They are so convinced by their brainwashing that I am just amazed. Their parents by the way, are divorced with the mother holding full custody. The father contested this - evidently because the woman taking care of the children is a PSYCHO RACIST DELUDED WITH THOUGHTS OF WHITE SUPREMACY.

Notably, they call themselves Prussian Blue as a reference to their German descent and blue eyes. Funny thing is, despite all this pro-Aryan shit, that crazy mum is a brunette.

Accompanying my feelings of nausea, was some curiosity over how racist racist their songs can be. Existing racism in Singapore, due to the effective *cough* control of speech, isn't very malignant. We have jokes about Singhs in turbans (I don't understand why this is funny, I mean really. I don't get it), male Malay bums aka 'mats' and crazy-kiasu Chinese people. At the worst, some suspiciously dubious trends in the military, but it is not in general very malignant.

Well at least, not as bad as these lyrics:

(Hate for Hate)
"Because too many white men choose wrong over white over the fight.
If the white man won't battle for life and for race.
Then women and children, the terror will face."

Or another one! Possibly, I might be interpreting much in this and may have taken in out of context. But well, when the context is white supremacy, you just don't know.

"Completely oblivious,
To what is going on.
What matters is us."

Or this!

"And black masked men with guns come bashing down the doors.
Where freedom exists for only those with darker skin.
Where lies and propaganda will never let you win.
Where symbols of your heritage are held with such contempt,
and benefits of country 'cept tax are you exempt .

Aryan man awake,
How much more will you take,
Turn that fear to hate,
Aryan man awake."

Thanks for being much more direct girls. Now I can point my finger at you and scream, "BLOODY IGNORANT RACISTS!" so much more easily.

But this, oh this makes me shudder.

"Rudolph Hess, a man of Peace.
He wouldn't give up he wouldn't cease,
he gave his loyalty to our Cause."

Rudolph Hess of course, was one of Hitler's deputies and according to Wikipedia, third in leadership of Germany during Nazi rule. I suppose he has my sympathies though because as the Fuhrer's private secretary, he had to read and edit that apparently unreadable tome, 'Mein Kampf'.

Evidently, he didn't do quite a good job.

C-c-check this out!


Spanish Fashion Show Rejects Skinny Models

MADRID, Spain (Sept. 9) - Spain's top fashion show has turned away a slew of models on grounds they are too skinny - an unprecedented swipe at body images blamed for encouraging eating disorders among young people.

Organizers of the pageant, known as the Pasarela Cibeles, used a mathematical formula to calculate the models' body mass index - a measure of their weight in relation to their height - and 30 percent of the women flunked, said the Association of Fashion Designers of Spain.

The association said Friday it wanted models at the show running from Sept. 18-22 to project "an image of beauty and health" and shun a gaunt, emaciated look.

The decision was made as part of a voluntary agreement with the Madrid regional government, said Jesus del Pozo, a designer who is part of the association, said Thursday.

Last year's show, also called Madrid Fashion Week, drew protests from medical associations and women's advocacy groups because some of the models were positively bone-thin.

This time the Madrid regional government decided to intervene and pressure organizers to hire fuller-figured women as role models for young girls obsessed with being thin and prone to starving themselves into sickness, said Concha Guerra, deputy finance minister of the regional administration.

Fashion shows, Guerra said, "are mirrors for many young women."

Del Pozo said this was the first time skinny models have been snubbed at a major international fashion show.

Ryan Brown, director of marketing and public relations in North America for the Elite modeling agency in New York City, agreed. "It is very unprecedented," said Brown, who has nothing to do with the Spanish show.

He welcomed the decision saying "I think it is great to promote health."

Madrid's show, which features mainly Spanish designers, is not as prestigious as catwalks in Paris or Milan but "it is not at the bottom of the pile," he said.

The impact of rejecting skinny women would have been greater at those other glitzier venues. Still, he said, "I am sure the industry is taking note."

The body mass index is a tool for doctors who study obesity. It is calculated by dividing weight in pounds by height in inches squared, and multiplying that total by 703.

If the resulting number is between 18.5 and 24.9, the person's weight is normal. Below 18.5 they are underweight. In the case of the Madrid show, organizers rejected women with indices under 18.

Brown of the Elite agency said fashion shows reflect the tastes of clothing designers, who for now prefer the Kate Moss look as opposed to the curvier dimensions of models such as Cindy Crawford in years past.

"They don't want voluptuous girls any more," he said. "It would be nice if fashion got back to that."

In the words of Georgia Nicolson, my dear friends:
OH MY GIDDY GOD TROUSERS AND PANTALOONS!

See, was organizing my Firefox (inferiority, thy name is Internet Explorer!) Favourite folders and I came across a long forgotten folder optimistically labeled 'Universities and Scholarships'. A vague sense of nausea arose in my being O comrades!

The reason is such - there is no plausible and human way for me to do barely decently (C average) for my prelims while at the same time, meeting my A Level Art deadline. There is no way. What frightens me as well, is my absolute certainty of said impending doom. Usually, I carry along in my Survive-It-All backpack massive doses of Desperate Optimism that usually buoys me up so that I am able to do slightly better than gloomily forecasted - wherence of course, my neurones proceed to implode from sheer exhaustion.

This time however, I've been using up said Desperate Optimism (D.O? O.D? HAHA!) to push myself for art. Some days it is good, some days not so and productivity is as high as um. Wait, I'll think of an analogy later.

Then on some days, I think up of clever ploys to survive said deadline! If technically, September 18/21 is the deadline because we need to photograph our work and September 28 is the REAL deadline...well, perhaps since my project is an illustrated book, maybe I don't need a picture taken of every single COMPLETED page!Eh? Eh? So, if I complete 80% of it, maybe I'll come out of this alive?

Nevertheless, with screwed prelims, it is thoroughly thoroughly unlikely that I can successfully apply for a scholarship which means NO OVERSEAS ART COLLEGE BABY. Goodbye! Farewell! I shall be stuck here with you, my fellow comrades. Which is only a bad thing because it means I'll only ever know you.

The Chinese call it being a mountain tortoise. The Malays call it being a toad under a coconut shell..I think. Say it with me, it's very funny! Katak dibawa tempurong! Malay, phonetically, is an awesome language - very dramatic and emphatic. For example, if you wish to say you waited and waited and waited for someone untild GOD KNOWS WHEN, you say:
"Aku tunggu tunggu sampai bulan tak timbul!"
Translated: I waited and waited until the moon didn't rise!

or

"Aku tunggu tunggu sampai buah tak jatuh!"
Translated: I waited and waited until the fruits didn't fall (of the tree)!

It is 3:48AM, and I am very scared.

How can I not fangirl Astreal when they say things like this:

Titled Fragments Of The Same Dead Star, the album is a whimsical tribute to a myth the band's vocalist/bassist heard. Explained Ginette, "There's a myth that goes something like we're all made out of star stuff, carbon etc... And when stars die, they form humans and other living creatures, so you spend your life looking for that one soul mate who came from the same dead star as you. Your other half, your cosmic twin. I heard that myth from a friend and was instantly charmed."

Well anyway, to accompany this fangirlish entry, here are a few songs from Hazri's copy of the said album. I suppose this is not very legal.

Crowd favourites -
Wallflower

Snowflake

June12 my favourite, so far!

In case legal type people are poking and tsking around, well, I'm just spreading the music love babe, the music love!

Because posting up random pictures is easier than actually writing:

More photo-editing.


A watercolour I did. As much as I enjoyed painting this, some angsty gender-conscious part of me thought, "Oh look: some girl painting pretty flowers. PFFBT!"


And hey hey CJ people! Check out cikgu yati's baby!





Feeling rather down recently, not quite sure why. Listening to The Dear's 'No Such Thing As Love' DOES NOT HELP.

Although it is a very good song.

Because
a) I didn't really like the photo editing I had done on the previous entry either,
b) I just discovered the significance of my digicam's ISO settings so no more grainy shots because of unfavourable lighting conditions,
c) and just to prove that I still have m4d editing skillz,

Matthew's Birthday

We baked!




Chopped up Cadbury's fruit&nut hocolate that went into the cupcakes!


Vincent is very excited (by the chocolate that went in)!
He also claims superiority in dolloping batter into the cupcake cups.
PFFBT.


Evidently, Charmaine is distressed!


The icing, very very evidently, REFUSES to cream!


"Oh come now, don't be such as wussy!" says Hazri.


PWNAGE


Charmaine doesn't care of course, she's just glad to get it off her hands!


Iced! Well, we never got it to cream properly cos we used the wrong sugar =(
But it did give the icing...interesting texture. Really, I mean it!




HURRAH TWENTY CRAZY-SUGAR CUPCAKES!


Close-up. Charmaine is convinced that the artificial colouring will eventually give us cancer and DEATH. Possibly Charmaine, possibly.


Matthew arrives! He mutters, "More confectionary."
You're welcome, Matthew.


Looking more appropriately enthused!




HAPPY PICTURE! Ooh, cupcakes.


The eating commences - look at all that icing! Vincent chooses to handle the icing by avoiding it completely. He ate a hundred chicken wings.


"Too many cupcakes! No more!" pleads a flailing Charmaine.


The sugar high hits, and things get trippy.

So we triapsed off to Hazri's room to do things wholesome teenagers do for fun. We took lots and lots of photos on Matthew's camera (anticipate a sequel to this photo-post!), lolled around the bed, watched Vincent's ears bleed as we unabashedly sing Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne, smoked weed -





AS IF.


It can't get any more wholesome than this! We're like, the Brady Bunch. Poster children for the MOE!

It was a happy, happy birthday.




FINIS.

sms spam!

"Being not attractive is not an excuse for not having friends. Call Dreamchat 1900-9111111 now. Real people waiting to know the inner side of you."





GUYS, YOU KNOW I TOLD YOU TO KEEP MY UGLINESS A SEKRIT! COME NOW, OWN UP - WHO SPILLED THE BEANS?!

HULLO HULLO!

For the few random souls that are still browsing through this thoroughly non-regularly updated blog, I offer you this: http://smartypants.diaryland.com

It is a hilarious blog kept by a mum of a adopted 2 year old girl, Nora, who is so precocious and random and weird and OH IT IS SO ADORABLE that it makes me want to have a baby. So yes, occupy yourselves with this blog while I go through the rigours of the impending A Levels!

Rigours! Tomorrow I am having my Econs mock exam and yet, I spent half the time reading the archives of aforementioned blog -- I am up to July 2005 so far, and it has been a cheery and laughy read. Which in any case, is certainly preferable than tediously going over old lecture Powerpoint slides trying to figure out why a decreasing average marginal cost would lead to an implosion of white matter, grey matter and doesn't matter!

I also feel really stupid sitting for mock exams, because they make me think of mock meat vegetarian food, which I think, is the cruellest affliction on these morally-righteous souls. Surely, the Powers That Be should grant these high-minded people proper and nice-tasting food for their sacrifice?

My boyfriend is a strange person, and I only say this because I suspect he might be more strange than me. Yesterday in the balcony, he suddenly proclaims:

"I AM A KING. This is our kingdom of - where are we? okay, Teck Whye Lane - and you are the queen of queens! WHERE ARE OUR PEASANTS WHO WORSHIP US, WHERE ARE MY KNIGHTS. WHERE ARE MY KNIGHTS, OH HELLO TAXI!"

What?!

Although to be honest, after I got over the initial seconds of why did he just say that?, the first thing that popped into MY head was: wait, I don't want to be queen of queens! That sucks, i want to be king, the king of queens because queen means you're second, but wait I don't want to be a guy AND WHO SAYS QUEEN IS SECOND PLACING ANYWAY.

So I told him shut up, because look at all my latent gender angst and prejudice!

(Paraphrased)
Once at an Adidas store, he points out a pair of red shoes, "Those are my soccer boots."

"Really? They're nice."

"I have them with me right now."

"But, you didn't have any soccer things just now, did you?"

"I know, I just wanted to use this bag but it felt weird and light because there was nothing in it so I brought my boots to make it heavy."

Oh such bursts of irrationality! But they are amusing and funny, and I like them because it is more entertaining than when he seriously tries to convince me that Spiderman is real because hey, doesn't fiction all have some basis of truth? No, no Syahrul, don't take my quasi-philosophical statement and put it in something that is terribly implausible because then I feel all the little philosophical convictions I have are just pieces of stupid bunk and oh I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ANYMORE!

But then, sometimes he has these moments of absolute lucidity and insight! Once, quite some time ago, in a conversation where I was having a burst of iamsomessedup introspection, he says:

"You know what you are? YOU'RE LIKE A DUCK IN A POND."

"What the fuck - what's a duck got to do with it?"

"Because on the outside, you're really calm, but underneath you're panicking you know, like aduck paddling furiously under the water surface."

WHICH IS THE FUNNIEST, STRANGEST, BUT ODDLY ASTUTE ANALOGY I'VE HEARD SO FAR. Which was why then, I thought, hey I like this boy.

Behold! I have succumbed to peer pressure - once more, after an odd and idiopathic month of massive inactivity, am blogging.

Just wanted to say though: NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS PEOPLE.

My lovely readers (probably about say - 5 of you in total), I am more than well and fine, and it is perhaps this newfound general cheer that must be blamed for the quiet spell over this blog. Oh I have things to say, but for some reason I like keeping my blog at a detached and impersonal distance so it is indeed very unfortunate that the bulkload (in both quantity and significance) have been of that opposite nature.

Oh well, haha!

You know, public toilets are strange things. There's a level of absurdity in going and using one: receding into a tiny cubicle, where you're partitioned by somewhat flimsy walls for a sense of privacy and isolation. But the fact is, the person next door is still well, shitting and peeing like you - which if you think about it, are actually rather intimate activities, but are considered so undignified. The same person who may be okay with making out in public (or semi-public), might cringe at letting out a loud fart.

Why are we so shy about excretion, when ingestion itself is a process that if you look at it carefully, isn't that pretty either.

So what, it's just eating. But think about it: you're shoving foreign material into an orifice, and the chewing! Mashing it all together - plant fibre, meat protein into an unidentifiable mess. Your mouth is literally like a food blender! It seems natural since we're so used to it, but technically, it can be seen as just as unnatural as shoving batteries up your nose.

BUT THIS IS JUST A VERY LONG DIGRESSION. What I actually wanted to talk about was the strange experience while I was well, taking a shit in the library toilet. The toilets there are white, with narrow cubicles and due to some bad planning, very shadowy because the ceiling lights can't reach the inside of the cubicles. So when you're inside for a rather long spell, it feels strangely...amniotic. You are by youself, confined in small quarters by the white walls that melt into the shadows, and then you hear your neighbours next door making the same very embarrassing sounds that you are - and, it feels clinically intimate! Maybe because when you are stoning on the porcelain, you kinda let slip the consciousness of your self and your senses become so much more aware of everything.

You imagine the person next door being in the same socially compromising position as you, and the thin panels that seperate you and the other person seem ridiculous suddenly! So you can't see, but you can hear and well, smell - and the visceral absence makes it so much more surreal. Privacy! The partitions are an absurd irony that can't help but betray the actual, unintended intimacy shared between faceless strangers.

Then you step out of the cubicle and see your neighbour and all at once, cannot link the sounds you've heard with this complete stranger. Given a face now, you can imagine it and you blush, turning away.




See, complain so much about me not blogging - now you've read an entire long post about shitting and going to the toilet! I don't know how much you enjoyed reading that, but well, I really did want to talk about it. Be careful what you ask for haha

On another quick note:

you can tell what's been on your mind when you dream that you're stuck in a sleepy tutorial, really not paying attention, then your lit teacher calls you up to give an answer for a question and it's a (d) question and you know, man that's the hardest! But it's not lit, its econs - an econs DRQ at that and you haven't read the bloody thing and your seat partner just went to the toilet so no one is giving you a clue to what's going on and then, the lit teacher says, "So, what is an ester?"

And then you think, "Ester? Is that spelt as 'esther' - wait, do I know someone by that name.." trailing off in befuddlement because even your dream-self hasn't realized that maybe, the reason why you're so confused is because you're being asked about a chemistry concept, in an econs tutorial, by your lit teacher.

Flipping through lj communities, I always perk up when somebody says that they're from Singapore too. This perky feeling however, is oft dampened when they continue vaguely about how Singapore is terribly boring, ugly and (inserted derisive adjectives here).

But I love Singapore! I mean honestly, even if you hate the parades of cheesy propaganda, I kinda find them a hilarious experience of overenthusiastic patriotism. Hours of too much organza and cheap satin, body glitter and anal organization and FIREWORKS. It's funny! I don't see how people don't get that, and sort of choose instead to moan and groan about it. Even the clearly biased reporting of the General Elections in the Straits Times was funny, because it's kinda ridiculous how *obviously* slanted they were being! That we seem to have a hub-obsessed neurosis: we are/want to be an education & sports & arts & biomedical & business & telecommunications & defense & trading hub. It's like the scrawny guy out there with the sports car - trying to make up for something, aren't we? We've got our fingers stuck in so many pies, its silly.

It's not a boring place to be either, you just have to know how to tear yourself away from the Orchard Road belt of hyperconsumerism.

And we have good local music, if you know where to find it.

Oh I don't know why I feel so obligated to prop up Singapore. I like this place, even more so because sometimes it's so indignantly stubborn and silly. Singapore-bashers just need to chill and grab a 70 cents teh tarik from the coffeeshop, take a look around and grow a sense of humour.

Besides, what is it that you really want, my Singaporean Fellows?

But what's wrong with narration?

Just came across a online journal that bemoaned that its entries have recently regressed into pure narrative, and I'm still thinking: what's wrong with that?

I suppose the reason why I haven't been blogging much these days is that I've been drawing a thicker line between what I might blog about, and what I won't. Finding it odd now to spew out how I feel in public, and sometimes I really do think people should be less emotional in their blogs.

Don't know why, but I guess in my head, it is that if I keep something private, it not only means that it means more to me, but it keeps its value. As opposed to it being aired like dirty laundry -- telling everybody, then everybody knows and its public, its no longer exclusively yours and it simply becomes part of the monumentally large heap of online debris.

Oh gee, I'm even uberly possesive about my thoughts.

Meanwhile, narration!

Technically, we had a three and a half day weekend and despite our principal's prayer that we would use the time in a wisely academic way, well, I did not.

Of course we didn't.

Thursday evening was spent with the family -- justified because it is a rare occasion of Family Bonding. Surely the Catholic school would approve of that, yes? We went up the DHL balloon which went up decently high and it is quite pleasant. Too bad the fog from the recent shower marred the already limited picturesque value of the Singapore skyline. Nevertheless! We found a shop that sold funny hats (score!), and it occurred to me that if we (being Charmaine, Matthew and Hazri) really wanted Milo dinosaurs and good prata post-library sessions, Arab Street is somewhat a walking distance away! HURRAH.

Friday, slept in late. Went to school/Hwa Chong for SYF rehearsals. Quite boring, being a button pusher. Dropped by my class'gathering, was really funny! And then in the words of Amanda Wingfield, Deception! Deception! Don't know when to feel more guilty - when in the act of deceiving, or the deception succeeding.

Saturday, back in school for a short stay during rehearsals - back to the laptop to fiddle with sound things. Met for lunch with family i.e. my cousin, Dhaniah. Later in the evening: Broadcast @ the Substation! I think the best local gig I've been too so far, simply because there was so much going on for $10 - oh HURRAH!, the Singaporean in me cries.

Nothing is more alluring than value-for-money.

Before the gigs, they screened some local shorts and there was this one that was REALLY very good. It was charming, funny and in a refreshing way, didn't take themselves too seriously? You know, as in the acting wasn't all consistently great but you can tell that they're cool with that. They didn't film it to be Cannes Film Fest material - they did it because they wanted to tell a story about the less than sparkling side of Singapore, in a fun and funny way. Kudos to that!

Bands to note cos they were brill and things! If you see one of the names and think, 'duh, I already know they're awesome', well, um, anyway!

- Life Without Dreams
Yeah I know their name sounds on the emo side of things, but what awesome shoegaze! Honestly, killer atmospheric experimental, (largely instrumental) electronic rock. I suppose not everybody liked it, cos including Dhaniah and myself, only 5 people were really getting into their sound but oh! After their second track, we concurred that their music makes you want to go to sleep to ascend to higher levels of..consciousness? I don't mean its very revelatory, but that if you really concentrate on their music, you become so aware of how rich and layered the music is, and there is only that sound that kind of lilts and lulls and lifts you along.

- Etc
ZOMGUH this band is superhilarious! Their songs are witty, in a dry deadpan way and so catchy in that UK music way. EBS people, janice especially if she is reading this, you guys will like them! Co-incidentally, they're playing at Arts House next Saturday *hint hint*

- the Stoned Revivals
Yes, everyone knows how great they are and yes, they are. I would give them the applauding commentary they deserve. But I am supremely annoyed that they DIDN'T STICK TO THEIR SET TIME LIMIT AND THEREFORE, PUSHED BACK ASTREAL'S SET WHICH WAS WHAT I WENT TO THE GIG FOR.
Like, I know you're good! We all know that! We like you! A lot! You played your 45 minutes! Move on!

- Astreal
Life is cruel. I could only stay for 20 minutes of their set before I had to drag myself away to catch the last bus and augh they were sounding so good. The last time I heard them was when I was with Zara at DesignEdge last year, and since then, have been wondering whether they are as great as my memory makes them out to be.

Well, my memory is right.

They sound great live and yes, the drummer is still very hot. And very engaged. *sigh*

Then Dhaniah came over to my place where we baked and souped for Mother's Day! Will post pictures soon! There was too much pumpkin.

Sunday sunday sunday, slept in, exhausted from the dough kneading. Watched waaaaaaaay too much television (but so so good), went to my grandma's for another family shindig that was typically pleasant but boring. Panicked over lack of work done, blogged.

The end.



Note: So if certain people are not mentioned in this entry, it's because I can't decide whether its blog or non-blog material. Just wanted to say that, in case that person is reading this.

OH I WILL STOP BEING CRYPTIC BECAUSE IT IS SO ANNOYING WHEN BLOGGERS ARE CRYPTIC. Last time, I promise!

Surely, I have something to say!




Right, how's this: the other day for PE, my friend and I were packed off to the gym. The reason being that we still could not land our standing broad jump well - and quite literally for me. I hit the 170s, but it seems that my center of gravity has claimed a permanent place of residence on my butt, because that's what I kept falling on.

It's just a tad awkward being the only two girls in the gym, doing funny leg exercise machine things in our short shorts while the guys muck around doing their own thing, occasionally grunting fraternal support and admiration to each other. Also interesting is that it looks a little absurd, this whole affair with exercise machines. As if we've been reduced to such a sedantary life that we need these bulky and complicated looking machines to develop basic muscles!

Our Little Art Class faced a traumatic event yesterday, when an art teacher from a certain established junior college, upon invitation from our own teacher, visted us for consultation services concerning our A level coursework.

So traumatic that we ended up coining the name the Fry Club for those who received her attention. I was spared fortunately, but those who weren't like Zara and Kenneth ended up even more confused than before, and primarily because once more, it triggered the whole structured institutionalized art vs. free art -- and no prizes for guessing which camp said visitor came from!

No guesses from which side I come from either.

I don't know, I just cannot understand why people would think that to get a good grade for the A Levels, you have to somehow sacrifice some extent of your creative will to give space for what the Cambridge People Want. I know you've heard this rant a gazillion times from me Zar, but augh the issue still makes me itch! What is the point of doing another hyper-realistic painting in *gasp* acrylic, when there are already so many around such that it looks like it was almost painted by the same person. It's all the same, and it's all very boring after awhile. I cannot understand the fear and paranoia that surround the whole issue! Notably, not quite the fault of the students, since it was first perpetuated by the teachers...it's times like this that I was so pleasantly surprised that our teacher, who we thought to be quite uptight, is somewhat liberal after all.

But you know, I suppose even after my whole DON'T BE AFRAID, JUST DO WHAT YOU WANT sentiments, I am aware that I might be risking (gasp!) a B and I'd be lying if I said it doesn't worry me..but I think that if I did get a grade lower than an A for the right reasons, I'd be okay with it. In this sense, it's not like the other A level subjects where you flop because you didn't work hard enough, or just messed up that crucial 90 minutes of essay-writing. Because at least your work will speak for itself you know, so to hell with what the examiners think cos after all, if you're going to work in an art-related industry, its the portfolio they look at more I should think, and not the grade.

Boy, am I glad I'm going to an industry where sneakers and not polished leather shoes patter about.

But still, I have faith in the Cambridge examiners - that they really aren't the pinched, narrow uber-traditionalists that they are made out to be, and can recognize skill, talent and effort when they see it. Let's give them some credit, right.

Right?

This weekend's theme must have been: Miscommunication.

Which is such a frustrating thing because it's essentially just unneccesary aggravation! I know I've said this so many times in the past 24 hours, but I can't help repeating myself because some neurone of mine thinks that if I keep repeating it, I'll stop feeling (aforementioned aggravation) it so much.

So, miscommunication yesterday and then, this morning as well! Whereby I turn up at Jurong library, quite frustrated at not being able to find Charmaine, having gone up and around the three levels, calling a handphone that refused to be picked up, only to find out that they were in fact, at the National Library at City Hall.

I spluttered massively in disbelief, and I'm telling you, I felt like crying.

Then I got caught in the rain.

I stood there in the rain, Coke in my hand, sipping it occasionally and thought: No. This cannot be happening.

Except that when I closed my eyes and opened them again, yup, still standing there, worrying whether Kate the Laptop will get wet in my bag, wondering why I never bring an umbrella with me even though it makes logical sense, wondering what I did to incur the wrath of God and the resulting smiting of uh, inconvenient rainfall, wondering if I should just turn around and head home, wondering why the rain was so early in the afternoon today.



I hate these hormone-induced mood swings!

Because you know what, despite all of the cruddy things that happened, I did actually have a nice weekend, more or less. Spent Saturday with my cousin, unexpectedly got a free ticket to see the SSO, was suitably and agreeably impressed by said concert, talked well with several people and and and.

Right, something I wrote:


Navigating along a familar route, it is rather odd how people can meander through paths, following a dotted line on a map that is seen only in the nanosecond moments when lids are pulled down over the eye in a blink. And as limbs and thought wander off on a different track, you see the many things that you see everyday. A part of the flattened image that wallpapers your perimeters: there, we have the dry grass and above, the bright and cloudless sky that from its great distance, is changing the green to brown. There, we have the red, silver, blue, black cars of generic make and there, the bus that rumbles along with flawed suspension, lopsided. There, we have the cracks on tarmac.

There, we have the lady who is waiting patiently for the temple to open its gates that are now speckled in pearly rust. Yesterday and like the many days before, she might have been sitting by the steps with crumbled edges, or by the roadside curb holding on to an old bag that in turn, hold on to its fruits and cakes. These items, asserted by our mortal tastes to be overripe and bland, will soon in an offering, be making their ascension to the heavens; the seams of the said bag meekly protest this, and slouch over the edge of the curb like a soft anchor.

Today, she is standing and stretching her arms, soft curves that arc into the sky and you wonder where her anchor is before realizing that it is already there. The gates are late today - the tending old man, who you suspect lives and sleeps in the temple, is still sweeping the grounds clear of the dust that sweeps in everyday.

You wonder what it is that she could be praying so hard for.


..........

On another note, the death of a friendship is so awkward to navigate through.

So what do I do now: do I still politely smile and make inconsequential small talk or twitch my hand in a passing wave or even bother putting on the veneer of cordiality or ignore you because why bother right or just ignore it because on my part at least, I've always sort of known it was like that except that now, the horse has said its word.

What, in the world, do you do with a corpse?

Notably, I have recently lapsed from putting up rambly posts that are both, something and nothing. Which got me wondering -- is it because *cue: collective speech bubble rising above all JC students* being in jc is so wholly draining, and that I am so absorbed in it, that I have not noticed anything else outside of our small, but insanely numerous school-related trifles?

Also, I think I'm a) getting too serious, and b) take myself too seriously.

Which in itself is quite ironic because I have recently found myself telling people to stop over-intellectualizing certain issues because it's so unneccesary etc. etc.

Right, I'm going to shut up my Pensive Voice now!

Today, I consumed a humongous amount of food. Oh oh remember when I used to compulsively make lists!

What I Ate Today
i. For lunch, at an Indonesian buffet
- Gado-gado: A not-so-vegetable based salad (haha!) of fried tempeh pieces [compressed and fermented soya beans], chunks of ketupat [tightly compressed rice - a rice cake, if you will], sauted cabbage things drenched in rich peanust-coconut gravy!

- 9 large and wonderfully fresh prawns. (Dhaniah! Where were you!)

- Greasy, but zomg: oxtail soup. I suppose some would find it a tad too salty for their palates, but I thought they balanced the blend of spice and mutton incredibly well

- Some noodle and soup thing; see description of soup above. Different soup, prawn stock this time, I think, but just as good.

- Rendang! This being almost always the highlight for me at any foodie session at any Malay family (or in usual cases, far-off distant relatives to whose events we are still invited to). For the uninitiated, this is chunks of beef that have been marinated, then simmered in a large pot of thick, calorie-ridden gravy of coconut and spices. It's really rich and because of the massive amount of time spent stewing over the stove, the meat is so tender it easily parts along the grain into individual STRIPS.

The buffet didn't do it so great though, but good enough for me to have several chunks.

- Tea

ii. at The Coffee Club with Charmaine and Ching Hong (alliteration!)

- A handful of Chachos nacho chips with cheese dip

- A tiny bag of Jelly Tots; I like the purple ones best! Is it strange that I've tasted so many things blackcurrant-flavoured, but not the actual currants itself?

iii. At Cedele/Ya Kun Kaya with Matthew

- Two thick heavy bagels dipped into his spinach chicken soup, which was better than anticipated but was too lazy to buy my own. Cedele has a great way of making dodgy sounding soups taste great! Carrot-coriander soup, for example! Love, love, love. But for the love of all baked goods and wholesome soups, I'd NEVER try the pea soup that they had today. EW!

But then arh, Cedele also cheated my feelings today! Said bagels were stated on the laminated labels to be cranberry bagels, hence, the reason why I bought them -- but they turned out to be plain! Wah lau! So it was like eating a whole loaf of white bread that was compressed into donut shapes.

Somehow, I always turn to Singlish when it comes for whinging petty grievances.

Mel: Which Cedele are you working at?

- a cup of teh susu/milky tea


So all I'm thinking is, how in the world am I going to run my NAPFA 2.4km run tomorrow at my goal of under 15:00min! Poop. What bad timing, I feel like a bloated whale.

In retrospect, I suppose I didn't eat that much - but ALL THOSE CALORIES FROM THE BUFFET. *dies*

Ho hum, pig's bum! I have yet to complete my lit essay that was due Wednesday, nor have I sufficiently prepped for tomorrow's informal debate on globalization. I think it's kinda strange that I have very little interest in the two topics of said due work: globalization and existentialistic musings. Not that I don't think them very important, but my brain seems to dismiss said issues after giving them a 5 second cursory glance.

Why, in the name of all things literary, do writers feel the need to expound, extensively, on the various perspectives of existence? Granted, maybe it might be just my ignorance making itself heard but HULLO, a lot of it sounds like a load of indulgent bovine scatology to me. Brilliant man summed it up in a few syllables: "Cogito ergo sum; I think, therefore I am." No need to write, or make us write lengthy essays about it! Why do you torture me so, essay awaiting to be written and it's 2:18AM!

Recently, I've been pre-occupied with trying to determine in concrete terms how I sound like when I speak*. Various friends would know this, seeing that I've been prodding them for answers at a perhaps, vaguely annoying frequency. Started thinking about it again when Matthew got annoyed by a Caucasian man sitting at the next table who was talking with a really strong accent. Which of course, is really hilarious I thought because you know, Matthew is half-white, (okay granted, pink when he's sunburnt or laughing), and has a not-very-local accent too.

And he's spent all his life, localized in Singapore. Not that he's ugh, one of those obnoxious expat kids that hang around Wheelock's Burger King - but okay la, he is a good specimen of cultural assimilation - YAY YOU! I suppose I will never understand this peeve of his though, as much as he won't understand why I really, and sincerely, wanted a rock from Africa/Cambodia when he went there.

A rock, you say rather incredulously.

Indeed!

At first, it was just a funny idea but if you think about it right, it does make sense. Why should a rock be a stupid/silly/ridiculous souvenier? And I'm not making a logical justification for the sake of it here, but really! A rock, would quite literally have been a PIECE OF AFRICA. Is that not cool, or what? Sure, a made-in-Africa trinket would be a piece of Africa as well, but in my head, it just doesn't seem as authentic. It's a piece of tourism. But a rock, and a random one from the streets at that! That's real, it goes beyond the commerce, beyond society - it's GEOLOGICAL. Like, it's always been there, nobody made it, it's a part of that gigantic continent AND IT'S SITTING ON MY DESK.

And the fact that a rock that probably looks like ordinary junk, sitting on my crappy laminated plywood has actually travelled thousands of kilometers from where human life sprung, is pretty mind-blowing.

Please agree with me, because he doesn't BUT I KNOW I'M RIGHT SO WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M JUST BEING SILLY.

Good night all!





*Because once more, I am pensive over the fact that I don't sound malay at all, or so they say. Even Dhaniah, Hazri and Ili sound more malay than me!

If I don't sound malay, don't speak malay, don't hang around with many malay people outside my family, am not immersed in the traditional or urban malay mainstream culture, then HULLO the only malay thing about me is my skin colour.

Which is a pretty superficial reason to call myself a malay, I think. But then again, I suppose race as a concept in itself, is pretty superficial.

OH OH I LOVE YOU ALL!

I was actually meaning to keep this birthday rather low-key, and was not even intending to have the tiringly obligatory (and sometimes, trite) 18th Birthday post -- but you know, I have been having an awesome past few days so yeah, you guys really do deserve me saying that I appreciate it, and love you, individually and collectively, very very much.

*beams* The slushy tub of ice-cream with lit candles almost sinking into the depths of creamy Burnt Caramel is simply classic.

Right, this is the cue for me to hum a cheesy and chirpy showtune about close friendships that never, ever end! Eighteen's looking good.






#ADDITIONAL NOTE:
zomguh GENNIE are boys in canada really like this? (click this, quickly people!) http://scottage-cheese.livejournal.com/

Um, supreme hawtness. Also! Hazri, Jenn and other camwhore-philiacs, mark it! Brilliant photography, and somehow, all his friends would fit in an Abercrombie ad.

Now THAT'S successful eugenics.

#EDIT

Apprehensive!





I had a good day.

Apprehensive!

Cassia* blooms on the sidewalk

I lift my head, and look for
A falling foot;

My own strike the ground,
Grinding the ochre petals

Deeper into the concrete;
Delicate tissues and its crisp collapse! --

Putrid bruises will grow
Where my sole has rested;

But the expanse of wallpapered ground,
Of crushed blossoms too tense,

Stretches ahead and behind,
I am putrified.

I lift my head, and look for
The falling foot.




*Cassias are the trees that line the sidewalks of my housing estate, just so you know.
................................................................................


Right, that's the first thing I've seriously written in a long time since what, last September. Comments please - how is it, do you like it, or more importantly, do you get it? Because if you don't, then I'll quickly file it into the Bad, Embarrassing and Juvenile Poetry folder that if you must know, is quite bloated.

I think the problem is that I take myself too seriously.

Also a note to self: Must take care against reading too much Plath - her poetry fills my head with too weird imagery and discordent rhythms that leave me very unsettled.

Talking with Anisha and Zara today, and quite suddenly in the meanderings of the conversation, I realized that I really am quite angry, or frustrated, with rich people!

To be more specific, rich people who are hogging scholarships for the prestige.

Now I do realize that typing this on my three-month old laptop, this rant might stain a little of hypocrisy since I am no street urchin so to speak, but hear me out nonetheless. The thing is, and I am saying this out with no real figures but a good and strong general hunch of things, is that a lot of people out there who are getting the overseas scholarships are quite well off. A good portion of them I think, could have their daddy pay for their 4 years abroad without much financial burden. In other words, they don't quite need the scholarship, which might lead us to the conclusion that they do so for the Prestige.

Not exactly a revolutionary realization, I know. In Singapore after all, we do a lot for prestige. But I'm not quite sure you understand yet why I am so pissed.

What this means, is that the scholarship goes to a remarkably bright person who has had expensive tuition/enrichment classes for the whole of his life to go to a prestigious overseas universities that his parents could have paid for anyway. This then means, that out there, are a group of people who academically not as brilliant, but honestly REALLY cannot afford overseas education because the money has gone to someone who could and would have gone anyway sans scholarship!

Has it not occured to the scholarship giving organizations that the reason perhaps why there is an increasing rate of people breaking their bonds is because they are giving it to people who a) are rich enough to afford breaking their bond without being declared bankrupt for the say, 70 years of their entire life and, b) that therefore, hey, maybe they don't really NEED the scholarship after all?

I am not saying that the rich clever people do not deserve the scholarship because granted (haha!), they are academically brilliant, and I hope that you are not inferring from the direction this entry is going that I would like our education system to celebrate mediocrity, because I'm not.

What I think I'm saying is that the people who have been born financially advantaged, should maybe give some thought to those who aren't. Give them, or perhaps, what I'm trying to avoid saying is that, give me a chance okay because my parents can't afford to send me overseas and I wish people who don't need scholarships will stop hogging them. Ironically laughable how I'm preaching against selfishness when part of my motivation stems from the thought of self.

It was odd how suddenly this afternoon the whitewash of clouds descended down, smothering us in thick humidity and it was as if the clouds had swallowed all the air, almost.

Does anyone else think that the DNA-double-helix inspired bridge that will be constructed across the Singapore River looks more like a rope barricading the island's citizens from god knows what? Then again, we can't tell which side of the zoo cage we are on and I suppose anything is a psychiatrist's ink splot to be interpreted by the individual. Art does not mirror life, it mirrors the spectator; how very true, my dear Mr. Wilde.

I don't have much to say today, and am only stubbornly typing because I am sick of essays including the document that is waiting for me in the other window. I am quite tired of school in that I am tired of the work - I am bored. So much so that I am even looking forward to tomorrow's P.E physical conditioning session because my brain, being inactive then, will not be bored. On a side note, am getting marginally better at softball in that more often than not, I can catch it. Batting however, is another issue entirely although I am glad to say that it is an issue that I share with most of the class.

Strange thing is, I do have many things to say to certain people, except that I haven't seen said people in quite a while or even if I have, or will, somehow I never do end up talking about it so it's all swirling in my mind and sometimes on bus rides home, I have entire conversations with said people by myself. It is at once, a most gratifying and unsatisfying exercise.

I just found ants inside my empty packet of Snek Perisa Udang (read: terribly tasty and nutritionless prawn flavoured flour sticks). I think they'll die of MSG poisoning.

Has anyone ever considered that maybe a contributing reason why Islam is recently prone to being the baseground for shooting off wayward terrorists is that because our religion doesn't have a concrete, physical, human representative of the religion?

Right, I was flipping through some library books the other day when I came across a few things Aldous Huxley had to say about religion. Paraphrasing this almost verbatim here: Huxley sees the Christian doctrine of the Trinity from a naturalistic perspective. That the -

"God the Father represents the forces of nonhuman nature,
God the Holy Ghost symbolizes the ideals towards which human beings at their best are striving, and
God the Son personifies human nature as it actually exists – bridging the gulf between the other two by channeling natural forces into the pursuit of ideals."

Now in a sense, all religions we can safely generalize, embody the first two values. But Islam, apart from the vague effigy of the Prophet, lacks the human bridge needed to really connect the abstract concepts of religion and faith to the common man. Other people have huge statues of Jesus, Buddha and innumerable Hindu deities, and as some ignorant people would think, what do we have - a cube?

When you pray, let me ask, at the back of your mind, do you envision the physical representation of your own god? Sort of, right - hard not to when the visual image of the hanging body of Christ or the serenity of the Buddha has been emblazoned into your mind. Visual images are very underrated things, and are more influential in our psyche than people think. Transcending words, symbolism is the very core of our primal human selves. But when I pray, well, I honestly can't think of anything. Vaguely, I envision goodwill, but how in the world - it's just so vague!

Without that physical link that humans evidently need, I think it is easier for us to have difficulty in anchoring down the abstract concepts and sometimes, I think the wayward ones find their physical bridge so to speak, from charismatic but twisted extremist leaders. Simply because the leaders provide the certainty and answers that we all have difficulty in determining by ourselves.

So maybe that's why we have bomb-strapped people running around exploding themselves in the name of God - because the picture of God in their head has been completely warped.

So walking to the bus stop on the way to school this morning, I came across a truck unloading its cargo at our friendly neighbourhood NTUC. The bright and cheery logo painted on the side of the truck proclaimed itself to be an emmisary from Lucky Chicken.

"Well, that's very cute," I thought, before noticing that the uncles were unloading boxes and boxes of chicken breasts that were - I kid you not - glistening in their shrink-wrap packaging under the orange soda street lamps. All I can think of is: "The poor chickens - they think they're lucky. But they are so not."

In fact, a lucky chicken I would think, would be the free-ranging kind, away from the coops and geez, the person who named the firm must have some very odd sense of humour. I would like to meet him. Nevertheless, free-ranging chickens! They have wild chickens in the residential barracks/cottages of Seletar Air Base, and saw them flying around the last time I visited my ex-neighbour. Yes, chickens do fly! They fly for about a 100 m or so, 5m of the ground before landing in somebody else's backyard to poke around the compost heap that..may have remains of yesterday's poultry-based dinner.

O what a twisted world we live in!

But it makes me giggle.

Right, if you are wondering why I am in such an odd mood, it is possible that it is because a) I'm having my Common Tests and am quite certain that They will finally know that I have only be surviving through a series of flukes and then they will realize that I am not clever after all and then the world will end, and b) I got my Malay AO results today, and it is the epitome of mediocrity so am mildly disappointed and mildly apprehensive about telling the parents.

It was rather entertaining though, having the seniors come back to school today and seeing them all dressed up. I would just like to take this oppurtunity to state down, concretely, some things that I promise – on pain of death – that I will not do:

I will not, after the A Levels, consider it mandatory, or neccesary, or even in good taste, to suddenly take the release from JC as the green light to plant myself in some hairdresser’s chair and impose on my head some odd, trying-to-be-funky-but-failing-miserably haircut and colour. All I want to say is: Why? It looks awful, is quite cheesy and predictable by now, and to me personally, reeks a little of a sad desperation to rebel and be oh I don’t know, wilder than the two years being constrained in a Blu-Tack coloured uniform. I think it’s okay and great to for something new, and most importantly, something that looks good, but it seems that not many people are aware of this.

Fortunately, among the sea of botak-head guys in small baseball caps in jeans/berms/indiscernible bottoms, there was this one whom I would like to applaud for his remarkably sensitive awareness of colour schemes. He had on a striped multi-toned red shirt – which I always found to be a tad overused, but he worked it. And light blue jeans with a buckled belt – a denim wash that I dislike and a style I always thought to be a little to brash, but he worked it. And get this, CREAM loafers.

You don’t get 19 year old guys wearing cream loafers anymore!

And think about it: red, blue and cream – which in my mind, is quite a dodgy colour combination but he got it to work! Enough for me to overlook the fact that his shoes were a tad too pointy and his bag was yellow which absolutely did not go but kindly, I will ignore this since it was slung to the back so all I saw was a brown leather strap, which is okay, yes, what yellow bag? Sartorially impressive.

Oh so many botak-heads today, and I am detachedly amused by the caps that they are all don on their newly-shaven pate. I don’t know why they still wear the caps, its not that I can’t tell they’ve been shorn, and the caps don’t look good and I have as of yet to see a newly-shorn person and end up screaming in fear: “OH MY GOD you are ugly now get away from me!”

In fact, I am more likely to say, “Your hat is too small for your head.”

so, I am Charlie Brown's baseball team.

I say this with no irony at all, unless those in the know would like to point out that it is not baseball m'dear, it is softball. Which, as we all know, is a gigantahumongous misnomer since the ball (and this I say from physical experience) is not soft at all.

In fact, I am so pre-occupied with the contradictary nature of this name so much that it is probably why I cannot play it all. That, after the fact that I was also too pre-occupied with the grossness of feeling the slick-with-sweat cushioning of the catcher's mask against my face, and that it is also too heavy and is slipping of my head and I actually have to hold it up with one hand and WHOA - ball flying into my face!

Just how does one cope!

It is the most cruel game to impose on a person with no sense of hand-eye coordination whatsoever. Somehow, when I stick my gloved hand in the air, waiting for the recently propelled un-softball to fall into said thick gloves, well, it doesn't. It's a mystery that I've been trying hard to figure out. Sometimes, it falls just besides me, before taunting me and making me run by rolling a 100m away or so. To others, I am sure, it appears that I am (moronically) standing still but I am telling you my dear sirs! According to my spacial judgement, it looked like I was standing at the right place and at the right time for it to land into my hand!

Okay, save for the few times I closed my eyes the nanosecond before it is in graspable reach.

Maybe it's because as an art student, I'm used to seeing 3-dimensional stimuli and translating it into 2-D and my brain just cannot understand the thought process required for activities such as softball. I sympathize with my brain. After all, it must be hard trying to process such unfamiliar thought patterns while being overwhelmed by the instinctual thought of: FAST BALL COMING YOUR WAY! PHYSICAL PAIN RESULTING FROM COLLISION IMMINENT - RUN! RUN!

At least I can throw the ball pretty okay, I think.

I am Charlie Brown's baseball team.

But you see, the problem is that the distinguishing line between love and hate is dotted.

That's why I couldn't seriously pick anybody when I mused on the topic of who I'd pick to be with if stuck on a deserted island with a couple of friends today. The first notion of logic that comes to mind is that you'd pick people who you love, or love to be with (which is not quite the same thing), but then you realize that because you love them, you also know their very flaws and at least for me, that really means I know you well enough to hate you.

That's scary, isn't it? It's true as well, that I do feel vestiges of hate for the people I love at times. It's just that I love them a lot more for 99% of the time, and the moments when I get mad, or massively annoyed/pissed/infuriated at them, I have the propensity to hate them because in any situation, I feel more for said persons.

The question I would like to pose, since I can't answer it is: Who would you rather be - the person I love and possibly could hate, or a person I am absolutely indifferent about?

WARNING: MASSIVE FRANZ FERDINAND RAVING.
Turn away if you're sick of this already.


O curse my short term memory!

The FF concert was shit-awesome of course, all worries about lacklustre live-audio flying out of the window since the sound was so clear and tight in tune and pitch that you'd think it was a recording, save for the fact that alex kapranos missed a couple of lyrics which in the grand scale of things, everybody who was there says - WHO CARES.

Right, back to the short term memory point. Too quickly too quickly the experience is fading for my memory like the bruises on my knee and hips. All I have in my head are quick flashes of bright lights, alex being a complete and lovable slut *FANGIRL*, nick and his guitar with the broken string swinging about, and for one of the songs zomg they had three people on the drums, and the quiet bassist who tash and i tried to wave to just to I don't know, so he'd be more cheerier somehow, so before all of this fades from my old brain:

PLEASE PEOPLE WHO ARE MY FRIENDS AND TOOK PHOTOS THEN, SEND THEM TO ME! SOON!
This means dhaniah/shila, jenn and your friend yvette (ask her to add me on msn, yes?), jaaanice and pam goh, although i suppose she doesn't even read this blog.

At one point, alex was standing on the drums and I thought woah, is he going to jump off then he uh, kind of nimbly hopped off and i was like, eh?

But the white light that made them look like angels and then turning blood red when they played This Fire, the way they sauntered out knowing, like tash said, that they didn't need a opening act or even massive dramatic shindig to work the crowd. When they played the first few bars of crowd-pleaser songs (which is almost everthing, basically) and the crowd just surges and the atmosphere was just there and zomg, alex really knew how to work the crowd with his sneaky, flirty furtive looks and uh, tight pants. or when the atmosphere is just SO up there and nick just kills you with the slick guitar and he plays with this pale and feverish gleam, or paul i think is standing hitting the bass drums pounding out a steady beat for us to cheer the band back out from their short breather and breaking out into Your Diary.

(paragraph break!)

how alex spoke with a funny elvis-accent, which is supremely odd for a scottish man and by general consensus, nobody understood but it was funny and they were having fun so again, nobpdy cares. oh oh and when they did those guitar jumps, or when people were jumping in the mosh pit and you jump along and it's like you're being carried by a giant organism IT IS SO WEIRD. oh oh and they played all the songs I wanted to hear by the first half and could die happy already because you could tell they were all really into it, and not just playing for a bunch of fans from a tiny speck of an island. hand punching and pointing in unision, screaming the words to the songs but you can't hear yourself anyway and then falling into captive silence when the song falls into a slow and soft catch and you can just see everybody watching the single notes and syllables flowing from the band like spheres of sound. Oh the bridge for Walk Away and That Was Easy were like that.

(oh come on, I must remember more than this!)

Hm, at some point in between songs, alex mentioned something about 'stirrings in his nether-regions'. I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine that, really! And for the love of everything in a flowery shirt and striped pants, I can't remember what led him to say that, or what he said afterwards.

I love that they made theatrical stage bows that were dignified in their own way, and did not smash one guitar at all throughout the whole thing because I honestly don't understand how musicians can bear to do that. Even though this entire entry quite shows that I have massive leanings towards Alex Kapranos fangirlhood, you know, we really were all there for the music.

Which was brilliant, and I don't think anything in 2006 can top that sweaty and cramped hour and half being hardly a meter away from FF although I would very much like to beg the Powers That Be to try, because man! If the peak of this year is in February, what does that say about the next 10 months?

So many times, I just wanted to close my eyes and enjoy the music the way I do with my earphones plugged into my ears in a closed and empty room but could only bear to close my eyes for 3 seconds each time because the nanasecond-thought of missing anything would immediately send my eyelids flying up.

Oh and when alex stand-curls around the mike stand and his light blue eyes glint under the spotlights singing slowly:
"You can feel my lips undress your eyes
Undress your eyes, undress your eyes
Words of love, words so leisured
Words are poisoned darts of pleasure"

Things that you can only see from a live performance, things that made the $90 so very very worth it. Somehow, I must convince you readers that I am not that massive a rabid fangirl, and even though I have vestiges of that, it's not the main point of this entry or why it was so brilliant.

It was the performance in itself, and these musicians with such a fresh sound, with an audience, a convention of like-minded souls you know? I suppose you have to admit that it is a form of idol worship although that makes me think of *shudder* Taiwanese boybands because for a long while, you've only known the band and their music and brilliance through indirect contact like cds and what, blog posts on their official site. and suddenly, their RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. Slight underexaggeration to say that things like that don't happen all the time and yes, again I suppose you could blame the celebrity culture that we have right now. But above all, it's just you want to know and meet the people that you think are incredibly talented because gosh, I'm sure they're pretty interesting people aren't they?

AND EVERYBODY WHO GOT TO
A) SHAKE HANDS
B) GET AN AUTOGRAPH
C) MANAGED TO PROCURE SUBSTANTIAL PIECE OF STAGE DEBRIS LIKE DRUMSTICKS AND GUITAR PICKS
D)STALKED THEM BACK TO THE HOTEL AND HAD MAD WILD ORGIES INVOLVING SINGAPOREAN FOOD

DON'T TELL ME OKAY. I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY UH, SMELLY CLOTHES THAT ARE STILL WAITING IN THE LAUNDRY BASKET. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.


My phone is so battered from the mosh pit it wants to cry.
Oh oh I don't want to forget so soon - come back neurones, come back!

One of the nice things about having an mp3 player and receiving too many songs to keep track is that sometimes, you are suddenly pleasantly surprised when you find an awesome song in your player that you didn't know even was in there. Today, that song is:

Kite
I hid myself from failure and fear
O my dear you're a threat to the bad in us all
They tell themselves that each word from your lips
Or the grace in your eyes overcomes any fall

Over the twilight you're listening for me
Darling, go to sleep
Cradled by moonlight, I'm dreaming we'll be
Loved so deep

Floating and fighting, like a kite on a string
Till you cut through my tether and changed everything
From the sky you looked small, but I loved you the same
So I darted back quickly to spell out your name
And when they say that I'm just a terrible kite
You'll tell them you're proud of my marvelous flight

Don't hide yourself inside till I'm old
O my dear you're a threat to the bad we all see
I'm beside myself for the touch of your lips
Or the grace of your eyes that can see good in me

Over the twilight you're listening for me
Darling, go to sleep
Cradled by moonlight, I'm dreaming we'll be
Loved so deep

Floating and fighting, like a kite on a string
Till you cut through my tether and changed everything
From the sky you looked small, but I loved you the same
So I darted back quickly to spell out your name
And when they say that I'm just a terrible kite
You'll tell them you're proud of my marvelous flight

- Copeland.

It sounds like a beautiful and sad lullaby, and lovely lyrics.

Thanks (insert name here) for sending it to me!

i have a sudden craving for blueberry waffles. and not the fancy-schmancy gelare kind mind you, i miss the good old heartland bakery kind so it is with much sadness and longing that i announce that the Nagoya Bakery at Teck Whye Lane has closed down.

i suppose it means nothing to you, but oh that was a place for cheap birthday cakes that always looked better than they tasted as i would find out every time when i was able to convince my parents to buy me a small mini-cake slice, the kind that has a tasteless wafer biscuit shaped as a disturbingly distorted dwarf. i won't be able to trace my name (the narcissism! the narcissism!) anymore in the condensation of the chiller while waiting for my waffles, or choose candles that eventually end up dusty at the bottom of the kitchen drawer.

NO MORE WAFFLES FOR BREAKFAST.

who says Singapore beaches are ugly?



so while the majority of the singaporean population triapsed around the island trading (at times) mouldy citrus fruits and collectively bemoaning the torturous activity that is visiting relatives you hardly know AND don't quite wish to know, I spent the monday "camping" at east coast.

I've said this to people many times, but only because it's true: on holidays where malays are generally excluded (i.e. christmas and CNY), the beach becomes this happy refugee camp! half the malay population comes to congregate along the shoreline with their respective families and if people say that the kampong days are gone - well, they're mistaken. all that's missing is a couple of running chickens and the fact that instead of attap houses, you have nylon tents that sprout suddenly like garish mushrooms. it's our malay blood answering the call of our orang laut roots!

anyhow, it was quite nice i suppose despite having to constantly worry about rain since the sky was dangerously grey and dim. food was good - think i undercooked prawns though, had a stomachache the next morning.

but yes, back to beach scenery!



what might the retreating wave reveal?



a washed-up cottony bra, of course!



or a rubber sandal.

but seriously though, as gross as the bra is, the beach does have some merits depending what kind of perspective you decide to take. sure, it's not brilliantly pretty, but what it lacks in sparkling marine wildlife, it makes up for..interesting litter. i say this with no sarcasm.


a massive entanglement of junk.
from the perspective of an art student, it's brilliant texture - wish i had got a sharper shot, but was pre-occupied with not getting camera wet, so!






I get annoyed by people sometimes who say with vehemence that Singapore is ugly. evidently, i disagree - there's a lot of beauty around here, you just need to be more open to the other definitions that it can take. not everything has to be sprawling pastoral lands or neo-classical architecture (hah i don't even know what neo-classical means!); our old and slightly mouldy hdb estates are beautiful in their own dank way, just like how the vines growing over construction boardings are beautiful as well.

like how there are actually TREES (ok, saplings) growing in the underground drains of matthew's hdb estate and that they peep through the metal gratings, or that the dandelions and small weeds growing by janice's estate cheer me up a lot more than the trimmed lawns of her neighbours. today while waiting for her, i was plucking the dandelions to uh, blow when i noticed a yellow stain on my fingers. turned out to be (i think) aphids! so queer - but they were brilliantly yellow with black spots.

there is beauty.